Brass Prep Procedures For 1000 Yard Shooting

[Stan]

In What order does everyone prep their brass for shooting out to 1000 yards? And what equipment do you use for each step? I have been doing the following steps for my 223 brass. This is after removing any crimps and deburring the flash holes on the inside. I am not loading huge quantities and use a Lee Classic Cast press.

1. Decap with Lee or Mighty Armory Decapping Die in a Lee Hand Press
2. Wet tumble with SS chips, Dawn & Lemishine. Dry and inspect brass.
3. Resize using Forester SB Body Die Bump Shoulders .004
4. Resize neck and set neck tension to .002 with Lee Collet Die
5. Trim to length with Lee Trimmer I want to upgrade my trimmer ASAP
6. Chamfer and deburr neck with Lyman tools. ELD inside chamfer.
7. Wet tumble too remove case lube. No SS chips just Dawn.
8. Prime cases using Lee hand primer.
9. Charge cases with powder. Right now I am dipping and trickling each charge on an Ohaus beam scale.
10. Seat bullets to ogive length with Forester Micrometer Seating Die

I think that pretty much covers it. I have not gotten in to sorting cases by volume or bullets by weight or ogive length yet. Maybe in the future I will go down that rabbit hole. So what do you guys do?

[JoeB]

I don't shoot at 1k, yet. But, I have a rifle dedicated to it.
After talking to several experienced LR shooters on another forum, my brass prep for that rifle is:
1: Open new box of Lapua brass
2: Run mandrel in case mouth.
3: Load and shoot.
Lapua brass is absolutely perfect, out of the box.
Dies are Redding type S F/L bushing. Seated .005 off the lands.

My other precision rifles, I use Redding Type S full length bushing dies. Brass gets prepped on a Lyman prep center, including flash hole deburring primer pocket uniforming, deburr/chamber. I trim it all with a Forster trimmer.
I use Imperial sizing wax, and wipe it off after sizing, I don't want my freshly prepped brass banging around in a tumbler! I use regular Hornady seating dies, with the floating sleeve, and measure with Hornady LNL bullet comparators.

[Stan]

Good info. What are your plans for the Lapua brass after it is fired the 1st time?

[JoeB]

Deprime, tumble.
Run it through a Redding Type S F/L Bushing die, no expander. I forget the neck tension (bushing) I'm using.
I measure for length every loading, trim the whole lot when they start growing.
Anneal every third loading.

[Stan]

JoeB, are you shooting competition or just for personal achievement? What are you using to anneal your brass?

[JoeB]

I just shoot for fun, for now.
My father in law has an annealing machine. I send it to him, it comes back annealed!

[Stan]

Always better to have a friend with a boat than own one yourself. :-)

[B.R.O]

1000yrds with a .223 is a hell of a shot.

My prep is simple. For my 308, walnut tumble, FL resize, 3 way cutter on the case lathe, ultrasonic bath, hand prime, trickle on to my ohaus beam, standard seating die. I really don’t have to do anything special to ring gongs at 1000.

If I was shooting F class:
I would weigh projectiles, neck turn and switch to bushing dies and only bump the shoulder.


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[Rev]

I may not be a good reference for this but here goes. I own An 1100 yard range and shoot prs. I shoot a lot at 1000-1200 yards. For my match rifles my brass pre/loading process is pretty simple. I run A 6mm creedmoor and use Hornady brass and Berger 105gr vld hunters. Honestly never trimer, never chamber, and never debur. I spray the brass down with Hornady one shot lube, run it through a Hornady fl bushing die with the neck tension set at .003 and bump the shoulder back about .003 prime my cases with an old rcbs ram primer dump my powder charge a little then trickle till I hit My charge weight then seat to .02 jump off the lands with a Hornady micrometer seater. My SD is 3 speed is 3077. Groups very well but I dont really shoot for groups any more since I got Away from bench rest and fclass. I used To do more brass prep than I do now but I’m kinda lazy and this minimum effort approach is working pretty good for me. I usually Place pretty high in club matches in my area, up around 7th outta 40 so I’m pretty happy with my brass prep method. But again that’s whats been working for me.

[Stan]

B.R.O. Yes it is but many are doing it. Certainly not for long range hunting but to ring steel. Thanks for your reply.